Sentiment
by kate221b
Summary: All couples argue. Some argue more than others. So when Kate disagrees with Sherlock's methods for the first time, where will they go from there ?
1. Chapter 1

This is a bit of unashamed fluff to offset the angst of Madness and Memory.

But it's also an exploration of how Kate would react to Sherlock's moods, and how they would deal with their first real argument. It's going to be short and sweet, so the plan is to publish a chapter a day over three days.

For anybody who hasn't read my other stories, Kate is Sherlock's girlfriend, and you can read the rest of their story in The Girl in the Scarf.

Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

'Do you love her?' John asked.

Sherlock looked scathing. 'Love, John? What is love. A chemical imbalance which results in irrational behaviour.'

'You didn't answer my question.'

Sherlock stared at him, waiting for John to look away. John failed to oblige.

'You're not saying no,' John said finally with a small smile. 'Am I to take that as a yes, or a maybe?'

Sherlock muttered something and walked over to the pinboard on the wall, contemplating the many scraps of paper that he had pinned to it.

'Because she loves you,' John said quietly, 'Even if she hasn't said it. She told me to keep you working and to stop you from going after her. She cares more about you, and about your work, than she does about herself, and if that isn't love, then I don't know what is.'

Sherlock turned slightly, looking over his shoulder at John and staring at him with a slight frown as if he had just said something particularly perplexing. 'Is that your definition of love?' he asked.

'Love is when you want the best for someone, irrespective of your own feelings,' John replied promptly.

'And when you feel a person's absence as an almost physical pain, is that love too?' Sherlock asked, turning back to the wall.

'Um- yes, I'd say so,' John replied, wondering where this conversation was going.

'And when you are aware that another person makes you into a better human being?'

'That too.'

'It is irrational, John,' Sherlock said after a moment's contemplation, pulling a photograph of the crime scene off the wall, and turning it to different angles, squinting at it and then turning it again, as if this would help him to find the answers concealed within it.

'Perhaps its meant to be. Do you want to keep her in your life, that is the question.'

'Yes,' came the clipped answer.

John picked up Sherlock's phone and threw it across the room at him. Sherlock caught it in one hand without turning round. 'Then text her,' John said. 'Apologise, admit that you were an idiot and start planning how you're going to make it up to her. And flowers and chocolates are a cliche by the way, you're going to have to be more inventive than that.'

Sherlock fired off a text without comment, then returned to his contemplation of the wall.

'When you can't stop thinking about someone, John. Is that love too?'

'Oh yes,' John said with a small smirk.

'It's distracting,' Sherlock said, as his phone bleeped and he pulled it out of his pocket to look at it.

'What does she say?' John asked.

Sherlock permitted himself a small smile. 'She agrees that I'm an idiot and tells me to get on with the case and let her get some sleep.'

'Good,' John said.

'Did you do that for Kate's sake or mine?' Sherlock asked, with an edge of curiosity to his voice.

'Both,' John said. 'Actually mainly Kate's. Now what do you want me to do next?'


	2. Chapter 2

The case itself had looked deceptively straightforward. A man found dead in the alleyway behind a nightclub, his body half dragged behind the industrial waste bins.

Apart from the fact that it wasn't simple at all. The man was a local businessman, with no police record, no history of substance abuse, and nothing to explain the industrial quantities of cocaine that were found in his inside jacket pocket.

Post-mortem showed the cause of death to be a single stab wound to the chest, piercing the left ventricle of the heart in one quick attack. A professional job, by the look of it, but with absolutely no motive that Sherlock and John could find.

The man had no cocaine or any other drugs in his blood when it was tested. Sherlock had gone through his emails, texts, phone calls, and internet browsing history with a fine toothcomb, examining both his home and work computers for hours, but he appeared to have led an entirely blameless, if slightly boring life.

The cctv cameras leading into the alley had been conveniently disabled, as had the ones at the exit to the nightclub, so there was no cctv footage to assist the search for the killer.

Forensics were still looking for DNA evidence, but so far they too had drawn a blank. There were no footprints in the alley, no fingerprints on the corpse, and no murder weapon, despite Sherlock's extensive search of nearby bins and hedges.

In short it appeared to be the perfect crime, and Sherlock was becoming more than a little frustrated. John had noticed the signs before Kate had. He always became snappy when things weren't going his way, not helped by Anderson's snide remarks earlier, and the fact that he hadn't slept for over thirty six hours. When Sherlock was frustrated, he lashed out at those close to him. John knew this, but he watched Kate's reaction with interest, intrigued to see how she would deal with this side of Sherlock.

The first sarcastic comment she allowed to go unremarked upon. The second also, but then Sherlock flew off the handle when she suggested that the doorman, who John and Sherlock had both questioned the previous evening, might know more than he was letting on. Walking back in from the kitchen where he had been making tea, John missed the majority of Sherlock's explosion, but the words 'irrational' and 'idiotic' were definitely in there.

Kate was looking more than slightly shocked, staring at Sherlock as if he had just grown at second head. Sensing an argument brewing of a scale that he would rather not be a witness to, John muttered something inane about needing to get something from his flat, and scuttled out the door before the fireworks could start.

Kate, however, was not fond of fireworks, or of confrontation. She stared at Sherlock for several minutes after he had turned back to his wall of information, ignoring her entirely, and then silently walked across to collect up her coat from where she had left it on the back of a kitchen chair, and walked quietly towards the door.

She was so angry with Sherlock that she was planning to walk out of the flat without saying a word. But Sherlock turned as she was walking towards the door. Of course he did.

'Where are you going?' he asked, sounding surprised.

'Home,' Kate said. 'Since I'm obviously an idiot and not helping, I'm going home; to sleep, and to not be shouted at.'

Sherlock buried his hand in his curls in his characteristic gesture of frustration. 'I didn't say that you were an idiot,' he said, slowly, with poorly concealed irritation. He needed to concentrate, and Kate wasn't helping that.

'No, but you implied it.

Sherlock stared at her, his expression softening as he stopped seeing her as another John, there to help him work, and saw her for what she was. Kate, his Kate, and he wanted her to stay. 'But I don't want you to go,' he said, suddenly childlike in his simplicity. 'I need you here.'

Then when she shook her head, 'I'm sorry?' he asked questioningly, as if this could wipe away whatever it was that had upset Kate. Emotion. It was so complicated. It interfered with logic. It interfered with the work.

'No, you're not sorry,' Kate said, with a sigh 'You're just saying that to get me to stay. I'm sorry Sherlock, I can't. I have to go home.'

Her anger had melted away as quickly as it had come. She couldn't explain this to him now, but equally she couldn't stay.

Reaching up, she swiftly kissed him on the cheek. 'I will be many things to you, but I won't be your punch bag,' she said quietly, allowing her hand to linger against his cheek for a moment. 'I'm sorry, I can't do that. If you need someone to shout at, then you'll have to find someone else.'

He still looked confused as he caught her gaze and held it, 'But I don't want anybody else,' he said quietly.

'I know, so we're going to have to find some way to work this out. But for now, I'm going home, not because I'm angry, but because I can't be here at the moment. But I'll phone you in the morning, and I'll come over after work tomorrow if you're in a better mood.'

'Stay,' he murmured as he pulled her into a hug, strangely relieved when her arms came up to hold him close and she let her head rest on his shoulder for a moment.

'I can't,' she said into his shoulder, 'but this doesn't mean that I don't love you. It just means that I need to be away from here.' and kissing him quickly, she turned and walked out of the flat, closing the door behind her. Sherlock stood where she had left him, bemused and frustrated.

At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated and knocked on John's door. He opened it almost instantly.

'Okay?' he asked her.

'Yes, fine. I'm going home, John, and I don't think that he has any concept why. Just - keep an eye on him for me will you? You know what he's like. Keep him working and don't let him come after me, he needs to stay focused.'

John nodded. 'Its not just you, you know. He shouts at everyone when he's working.'

'I know, but everyone else can put up with it, I can't. I've told him that.'

'Are you going to be okay getting home?'

'Yes I'll get a cab, its fine. Oh and John,' she turned with her hand on the street door. 'When he's more receptive, can you get him to look at the doorman again? I'm sure that he knows more than he's letting on.'

John nodded. 'Okay,' then impulsively he gave Kate a quick hug. 'Kate you're an angel for putting up with him, I hope you know that.'

She shook her head. 'I'm not doing it very well tonight, though, am I. Tonight I'm running away, but I'll be back tomorrow.'


	3. Chapter 3

Kate left her flat the next morning for a nine o'clock start, to find Sherlock sitting on her doorstep, two takeaway cups of coffee on the step next to him.

'Coffee?' he asked, looking up at her without getting up.

Kate sat down on the step next to him, and took the proffered cup. 'How did you know what time I was starting?' she asked, conversationally, not quite ready to forgive him yet.

'I didn't,' he replied. 'I've been here since a quarter past seven. This is the second lot of coffee. The first lot went cold.'

Kate laughed at this rare admission of uncertainty, and kissed him, despite her best intentions. 'You're mad, did you know that?' she said affectionately.

'So am I forgiven?' Sherlock asked, hopefully.

'You're definitely getting there,' Kate told him, standing up, and reaching out a hand to pull him to his feet. 'Now come on or you'll make me late for work,' she said.

'So did you solve the case?' she asked as they walked down the road.

'Yes. You were right about the doorman, well not entirely right, but he was involved. I had Lestrade raid his flat. They found a large amount in used notes hidden under his mattress, not exactly the most original hiding place. He'd been given a back-hander to wipe the cctv footage and to keep his mouth shut.'

'So he knew who was responsible?'

'He did, and he cracked fairly quickly once Lestrade told him the length of the custodial sentence that he was looking at.

'So you got your man?'

'Not yet, Lestrade's still trying to track him down, but we know who he is, so now its only a matter of time.'

'And the victim?'

'That's where it gets interesting. Case of mistaken identity, it turns out.'

'But the drugs -'

'Planted on him by the assassin to send a warning to a rival drug dealer once he realised his mistake. Lestrade has got the intended victim in protective custody.'

'So - I'm not an an idiot after all?' Kate asked.

'Kate,' Sherlock span her round with his arm so that she was facing him, 'I don't think that you're an idiot, it's just that other people's brains don't work like mine and sometimes I find it frustrating. I think that you're more intelligent than the vast majority of people that I meet, certainly more intelligent than John.'

'Is this meant to be making me feel better?' Kate asked.

'Yes. Is it working?'

'No,' Kate told him, trying to hide her exasperation.

They walked in silence for a while, then Kate said calmly, 'Do you think that you could try to find another way to express your frustration other than shouting at people?'

'At people or just at you?'

'At anybody if you can. It would certainly make working with you more pleasant.'

'I can try,' Sherlock said mildly, but his expression said it all.

'I mean it Sherlock,' Kate said seriously. 'I can't stay around to be shouted at, so it's up to you. If you want me to keep working with you, then you're going to have to find a way to stop shouting and snapping at people.'

'You're asking me to change my personality, Kate.'

Defensive now, walls coming up. 'I'm asking you to think for a moment before you speak,' Kate said gently. 'That's all.'

Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly and considered. 'Perhaps,' he said non-comiitaly, then at Kate's sideways look and half smile. 'I can try Kate, that's all that I can do.' He hesitated slightly before asking, 'Is that enough?'

Checking that they were alone in the deserted grounds, she reached up and kissed him swiftly. 'That will do me,' she told him quietly.


End file.
